The former president and Republican candidate visited the cemetery in Virginia, a state neighboring the North American capital, on Monday, to participate in a ceremony honoring the 13 soldiers killed in the November presidential election campaign, in the midst of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, for which he criticized the administration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, this Democratic Party candidate.
According to the North American press, during the visit, a verbal and physical altercation occurred between Donald Trump’s team, who were trying to take pictures of the event and the cemetery, and the cemetery employees, who objected to this use of the space.
“We can confirm that an incident occurred and a report has been prepared,” said an official at the cemetery, where some 400,000 veterans and their families, as well as two U.S. presidents including John Fitzgerald Kennedy, are buried.
The cemetery issued a statement confirming that federal law prohibits political campaigning or “election-related” activities inside military funeral grounds, including photographers, and that the Republican candidate’s team had been informed of this prohibition.
An informed source told the American press that a cemetery employee tried to prevent Trump’s team from filming and photographing in a certain section of the cemetery.
When a cemetery employee tried to block the Trump campaign team from entering the site, the Republican team allegedly verbally attacked him and pushed the employee aside, the source said.
The Republican nominee’s entourage, who continues to criticize Democrats over the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, responded by sharing a press release in which the soldiers’ families asserted that the photographer’s presence had in fact been “verified” for their care.
A spokesman for Vice President and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris called the incident “deeply sad” but “not surprising coming from the Trump team.”
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